Tuesday, September 29, 2020
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IMS volleyball competes in tourney
USD 257
District’s ‘flexible’ plan too taxing By VICKIE MOSS The Iola Register
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State testing to focus on virus cases without symptoms PAGE A2
Farmers Market to close Thursday PAGE A5
California fires destroy wineries PAGE B6
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Families in USD 257 will need to decide soon if they want their student to learn in-person or remotely. In a reversal of the school board’s previous coronavirus policy, families need to make the choice by Oct. 9 and stick with it until the end of the semester in December. Then, they can choose again. Until now, students could switch between in-person classes or online only. The idea was to give families flexibility between the two types of education, as they weighed the possible health risks and adapted to different learning styles. It was convenient for families, but very challenging for teachers who had to adapt to a constantly evolving classroom roster. Students have come in and out of the classroom on a
Jenna Higginbotham, curriculum director for USD 257, talks about the challenges for teaching remote learning. The district has allowed students to switch between remote and in-person learning but will soon ask them to stick with one or the other. REGSITER/VICKIE MOSS
regular basis, forcing teachers to adjust their plans and making it more difficult to get to know their students. It’s been more difficult for teachers in middle and high school, where teachers have
to juggle both in-person and remote learning responsibilities. The district has appointed dedicated “remote learning” teachers for preschool through fourth grades. The number of remote
learning students has stayed somewhat consistent but the students have changed, Jenna Higginbotham, curriculum director, said. “In kindergarten, for example, we started with eight students and we still have eight, but they aren’t the same eight,” she said. Remote enrollment varies between a high of 15 students in eighth grade to a low of five students in 12th grade. When the new semester begins, families will be asked to decide what type of learning they want for the third nine weeks. The coronavirus has forced the district to be flexible, Higginbotham said. They may have to make even more changes during cold and flu season, which is likely to increase absences. Teachers, especially at Iola High School, are also considSee LEARNING | Page A6
Ol’ Zachary awaits word on repairs By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Iola City Council members will await more information before deciding who will refurbish the Civil War statue that stood for decades in the Old Iola Cemetery. Council members discussed Monday two options: allowing a museum and foundry based in Illinois to restore the white zinc statue for no charge, or pay a Topeka foundry to do the work. The statue was most recently refurbished about 20 years ago in Topeka, but its white zinc surface is more susceptible to rust, corrosion or other damage than typical bronze or concrete statues. Eric Pry, curator of a suburban Chicago museum, and Harry Spell, who owns a foundry, approached the city in recent months about repairing the statue free of
This Civil War statue stood for decades in the Old Iola Cemetery and is now at the Allen County Historical Society. FILE PHOTO charge. The only cost to the city would be to transport it to Illinois and back. Interim City Administrator Corey Schinstock estimated transportation costs See STATUE | Page A3
Death toll tops 1 million By ADAM GELLER and RISHABH R. JAIN The Associated Press
NEW DELHI (AP) — Joginder Chaudhary was his parents’ greatest pride, raised with the little they earned farming a half-acre plot in central India to become the first doctor from their village. For the coronavirus, though, he was just one more in a million. After the virus killed the 27-year-old Chaudhary in late July, his mother wept Vol. 122, No. 234 Iola, KS 75 Cents
inconsolably. With her son gone, Premlata Chaudhary said, how could she go on living? Three weeks later, on Aug. 18, the virus took her life, too — yet another number in an unrelenting march toward a woeful milestone. Now, 8 1/2 months after an infection doctors had never seen before claimed its first victims in China, the pandemic’s confirmed death toll has eclipsed 1 million, according to a count See DEATHS | Page A6
Rally time David Lee, center, Republican candidate for the Allen County Commission’s Second District seat, was among about a dozen attendees at a rally in downtown Iola Monday in support of President Trump and other GOP candidates in the upcoming November election. Lee is opposed by Democrat Michelle Meiwes in the Nov. 3 vote. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
Presidential debate brings high stakes By DAVID LAUTER and JANET HOOK Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The first presidential debate between Joe Biden and President Donald Trump has a strong chance of being the most-watched political event in U.S. history, and the enormous potential audience on Tuesday is just one factor that has heightened the stakes for both candidates. For Trump, stuck for months on a losing trajectory, the debate stands as one of the few remaining opportunities to shift how Americans view the election and to reach voters beyond his deeply committed core of supporters.
For Biden, who has maintained a significant, but not unbeatable, lead nationally and in crucial swing states, the encoun- Donald Trump ter provides a chance to bolster his standing with a key slice of the electorate — voters who have turned against the president but remain unconvinced about his challenger. With that opportunity, however, comes risk for the former vice president, who, in debates during the primary elections, sometimes appeared to lack energy or focus. Debates are often overrat-
ed as a turning point in campaigns, said Mike Murphy, the veteran Republican strategist and fervent Trump critic Joe Biden who co-directs USC’s Center for the Political Future. Research by political scientists shows that for all the attention they get, general-election debates only rarely have an impact that lasts more than a week or so. “This debate is a little different,” Murphy said, in part because Trump and his campaign have worked furiously to raise doubts in voters’ See DEBATE | Page A6